reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: control


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in the seats of america. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

i would rather drive than be driven. relatively easily solvable. i would rather fly than be flown. there is one teensy problem with that one though. i do not have the qualifications to fly a jet airplane. and so, if i wish to travel via jet from one place to another, i have to give it up – control, that is.

for me, it is not so much about control as it is about motion sickness. if my brain – sans bonine/dramamine/large quantities of ginger chews – can see what my intention is as i drive/fly, than i am able to go with the flow, so to speak, and my equilibrium seems to adjust. i never did get a pair of those funky anti-motion-sick glasses, so that is one thing i haven’t tried. but wearing a pair of those – in addition to a mask – onboard an airplane is sure to get me some looks.

i was nervous when my children were little and i had to fly places – away from them – for concerts or shows. giving over control to someone i did not know at the helm required more than a bit of trust for me. i had to consciously work at it once i was a mom, with much prayer and self-talk throughout the flights. ultimately, as time went by and i safely arrived at venues and back home, i learned – slowly – to give over, to trust that the person in the pilot’s seat had all of our best interests at heart. i learned – slowly – to utter a prayer for her or his clearheadedness and expertise, sit back and relax a little.

but now times are different. we just recently flew – pretty much right after a couple aircraft disasters had taken place and many FAA personnel had been fired – introducing more risk – and i found myself wishing we had had the option to drive. trust me, i do know that driving is more dangerous than flying, but – remember – i get to be behind the wheel so it all feels a little different. i managed to keep my calm and fly – several legs – out west and back.

but the idea of control has stuck with me.

because here we are – in the seats of america – with madmen at the helm. here we are – sitting in a democracy being taken apart, being dismantled piece by piece. here we are – citizens of a country in which every check and balance is going unchecked, where oversight is being eliminated, where the core of our republic is being shredded.

this is most definitely a time to be absolutely worried about control. the risk is monumental, the potential loss world and life-changing. this is not a time to trust nor to give over. this is a time to be wary, to not sit back, to not relax. they do not have our best interests at heart.

“there are times when fear is good. it must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls.” (aeschylus)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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not going back. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

it all started with a print hanging in our bedroom. it needed to move somewhere else and it needed to be replaced with something different or nothing, blank wall space.

and so I took the print off the wall and brought in the vintage piece i thought might work. we held it up and hung it up. a little bit of change.

i went into my studio and pulled out an old full-of-personality metal tripod work light we had found at an antiques flea market this summer. it was five dollars and it actually worked. i brought it into the living room, wanting to find a spot for it.

i think it was the five-dollar-metal-dome that started the avalanche. still in our buffalo plaids, we set to work.

now, usually when people decorate they go to furniture stores and home good type places looking for pieces, new items to incorporate into their decor. but that’s not budgeted at this time, so we tried using different eyes as we looked at what was in place, what was in the basement stored, how we could change things up, refresh our home.

in the end, we spent the entire day rearranging. many spaces were treated to a littlebittachange – the living room, the dining room, the sunroom, the foyer. we imagined all kinds of things – maybe in the future some of those will happen.

and we laughed to find ourselves at 7pm – still in red buffalo plaid – ready for some leftover homemade soup.

the best part of the day, though, was a realization. at 7, sipping a friday night glass of wine with our tomato soup, we realized that neither of us had thought about or talked about the current political turmoil. it was a relief to be lost in something positive, something productive, something personally gratifying.

i know that as i go into the rooms of our home today it will strike me somewhat differently today than during yesterday’s flurry. i – sometimes – don’t do change well and my threadiness includes my surroundings.

but this time may be different. this time i think i will walk around our home and imagine all the potential of our future here. this time i will again feel the comfort of this old house, no matter what the decor. this time i will be decidedly more open-minded about not changing it all back.

because going forward – in all its shapes and forms – and not going back – holding to hope and possibility needs to override the exorbitant negativity – the absolute control-mongering insanity – so prevalent in our country right now.

we sat in the old wooden glider – moved – surprisingly – from the deck into the living room – and talked about the new perspective it gave us on the room.

“furry pillows will offset the rough-hewn-ness,” i coaxed him. we glanced around the room – at the peeling-paint-chunk-of-concrete in the role of coffee-wine-perch next to the leather recliner, at the portion of desk – with the sawed-off-side next to the radiator – in the role of end-table, at the huge tree branch from the beloved tree out front happy-lit in the middle of the front window and we laughed.

getting lost in our own home – our sanctuary – was just the thing we needed.

and to remember that little bit about control: “let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm.” (john o’donohue)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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bullied. as a woman. [flawed wednesday]

“never be bullied into silence. never allow yourself to be made a victim. accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” (harvey fierstein)

“to thine own self be true,” my sweet momma would say. she and harvey fierstein would have been pals. heck, i should be pals with harvey.

there is a cost. we all know that. coloring outside the lines requires sisu, gumption, chutzpah. speaking up, speaking out, speaking for, speaking against. a cost.

like you, i have been bullied into silence in my life. i have been harassed and i have been victimized. i have been liquified and poured into molds that don’t fit. i have been vaporized. i have allowed it. i have not allowed it.

i am a woman. and with that comes bullying, harassment, victimization. with that come molds, generalizations, inequalities, assumptions.

i am not naive enough to believe that were i to be a man i would never face any of these crushing blows. but i do believe that i would have faced seriously fewer.

it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been sexually assaulted at an innocent 19. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that, in reporting the abuse of many underage young women, i would have my life threatened at 21. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been scarily pursued by a man-with-a-foot-fetish at 35. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been terrifyingly stalked at 50. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been verbally and professionally assailed at 60.

were i to be a man, the men who wielded the power in each of these might have tucked his superman cape away, might have had a second thought, might have played out his control-game-fantasy somewhere else.

but i am a woman. and, for some reason deeply embedded in society, that changes the rules and empowers the mongers.

i have been silent.

for too long.

read DAVID’S thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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treading water. watershed. [k.s. friday]

watershed the songbox

i don’t feel as much in-a-boat as i feel that i am relentlessly treading water.  but there was no handy treading-water bitmoji and i remember the exact moment that this bitmoji showed up on my snapchat mapping…in the middle of a lot of treading.

treading, treading.  guessing at why what-is-happening is happening – in wide concentric circles around us, tightly close to us.

i can only guess, as i type this with these two now-familiar broken wrists, that this is a watershed time.

watershed pronunciation

definition 2

and today, both valentine’s day and d’s birthday, i want to express gratitude for this man who is standing in the water with me – waves crashing over us, undertow threatening to pull us down, riptide ever present – and holding my fiberglass-cast-encased hand.  the person who is equally as perplexed at this time, who takes turns with me being alternatively flabbergasted, philosophical and soberingly pragmatic.

he continues to zip my jacket, buckle my seatbelt, paste my toothbrush, carry my music, pepper-mill my breakfast and dinner, put the ernie straw in my coffee.  he has learned the fine points of where-on-the-head to place hair conditioner, how best to tie plastic bags on my arms, what stool will work best at the piano, which wine glass i can pick up at the end of a day.  he has watched me learn how to hold mascara with two hands and pull up girl jeans by the belt loops.  he has been treading water with me as we look to the horizon.

maybe this watershed is the thing that elicits change.  at the end of 2019 i could feel it coming.  and i can now, with all authority and certainty, say that the change is not that i will, smack dab in the middle of middle-age, become a professional snowboarder.  nope.  but there may truly be things out there i just didn’t see or consider.  perhaps the things that are vexing us, stunning us, deeply disappointing us, are just the things that will propel us.  ah, if that just didn’t feel so pollyanna-ish.

this life is bigger than anyone can ever live it.  that includes us.  treading water in the watershed might be a time that forces dynamic change.  like everyone, i wish i had some prescient inkling of what’s-out-there, what-will-happen.

my perceived lack of control is maybe a misperception.  maybe that which has taken away control is conversely granting control, granting the creativity that comes with grabbing onto flotsam and jetsam in a sea that seems to be swirling.  maybe the grasping-at-straws is grasping-at-ernie, a touchstone that seems flimsy and unimportant, but which actually is grounding, rooting, and gives voice to more solid footing, less wave-action, more direction-choosing.

the watershed is here.  moment by moment we stare at it.  we roll our eyes, we yell at the angst-y details, we shake our heads in confusion, we stop and stand still and, yet hyperventilating from treading, we wonder.  we try to breathe, to center, to be in the eye of the storm.

holding hand-cast, we look forward and we guess that this ain’t the last watershed on the horizon.

 

download WATERSHED from AS IT IS on iTUNES or CDBaby

read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

freezing des plaines website box

WATERSHED from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

 

 


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not. [two artists tuesday]

kindnessSCHITTSCREEK.jpg

granted, schitt’s creek is not a shining example of serious shows.  nor is it the apex of intelligent, thought-provoking viewing.  but we had run out of parenthood (still sniffling over the bitter end) and this is us and everest movies and documentaries and decided to try on something new.  we chose schitt’s creek.

it quickly became apparent to us that the humor in this show was not necessarily in alignment with our sense of humor, but we watched anyway.  we decided it was a study.

the stunning moment came when one of the characters looked at another and, in complete candor, said, “kindness is a sign of weakness.”

we sat and looked at each other, the glow of the moon on water out the window.  we dove deep into those words.  after much debate and a search for profundity, we realized that in this country, at this time, with these circumstances, it was a true statement.  kindness is not where it’s at, not what gets you ahead.  it is without power and control.  its calmness is terrifyingly missing in national goings-on, in international goings-on, in dealings with people even close-up and personal with agendas that serve only themselves.  kindness has left the building in more places than we would care to think about.  but a weakness?  not.

beaky, my sweet momma, said, “be kind.  be kind to each other.”  and she damn well meant it.  it may not have served her as well as being arrogantly demanding might have.  it may not have served her as well as being haughty, nasty, biting might have.  but it leaves a legacy for her that i am proud to speak about.  it is a rare treat to see someone not take sh*t from someone else and do it with strong backbone in a kind way.  my sweet momma was well-practiced.

and, i might add, she was not weak.

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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heart in island sand website box

and, if you wish:  more BE KIND merchandise found here

 


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when push comes to shove, don’t. [merely-a-thought monday]

civility 2 copy

my sweet momma always said that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  although she stood her ground, she rarely pushed back.  well, maybe at my dad…i certainly heard her push back in that relationship.  she was a woman before her time, struggling to be seen and heard…in relationship, in work, in the world.  nevertheless, she led with kindness and generosity.

recently i surprisingly found myself in a situation where i felt the kind of civility that is needed to accomplish anything was lacking.  instead it was aggressive, pointed, antagonistic.  “when push comes to shove” implies escalation and this, indeed, was the case.  instead of actual conversation, it was a push-shove back-and-forth.  instead of communication, it was a shining example of what-not-to-do.

we drove past a passiton billboard on the way up north that read these words:  when push comes to shove, don’t.  civility is in you.  what does a boorish push or a retorted shove accomplish other than an establishment of immaturity, a driving desire and play for power and an uncooperative non-collaboration?

civility is not that hard.  it should be what we lead with.  respecting others and their place in their world.  we each get the same air to breathe and we each breathe in and out the same way.  instead of escalating to shove or pushing yet harder, how might we fill our lungs with responses of peacefulness, thoughtfulness, fairness, appreciation, intelligent consideration, magnanimity, grace, even reconciliation.  why must push come to shove?  it needn’t.

just don’t.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

momma, d & k website box